The Sultan's Seal: A Novel (Kamil Pasha Novels)

by Jenny White

  Still, he remembered thinking that his fellow classmates at Cambridge, young Englishmen away from home for the first time, were not so dissimilar from the young men he knew at school at Galata Saray. One loved one’s parents, certainly. But once out from under their supervision, there was plenty of personal ambition and mischief. If, as the English say, ‘Boys will be boys,’ then why couldn’t ‘fathers be fathers,’ regardless of which society they belonged to? And here is Sybil, a representative of the individualistic West, tending to her father like any good Ottoman daughter.

  “Perhaps you could simply be a fly in his ear. The important thing is to be aware of the risk.”

  Sybil giggles. “A flea in his ear.”

  “Ah, of course. Although I find that image, well, rather unappetizing. I think I’d prefer a fly in my ear.” Kamil laughs. “English expressions. I’ve never gotten used to them. I think you have to be born English.”

  “It’s the same with Turkish sayings. You have sayings for everything. But even when someone explains them to me, I don’t understand them.”

  “Oriental inscrutability. It’s what has kept us independent for so long. No one understands what we’re saying, so they can’t conquer us!”

  The sun falling through the French doors has become hot and Sybil stands to draw the lace curtains. She sits again on the couch and, eyes lowered, adjusts and readjusts the folds of her dress. The room falls into a hush.

  After a few moments, flustered, she raises her chin and says, “Oh, I promised you tea.”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

  Sybil jumps up and runs to the velvet bellpull by the door. Her skirt catches Kamil’s leg as she passes. They wait in companionable silence for the tea to be brought. Each spark of conversation is muffled by the still, amber air, then extinguished, as if the air in the room is too thin to support speech. The click of fine china, the sough of tea poured, and the thin rap of spoons against the porcelain cups embracing their warm liquid take the place of conversation.

  Sybil slides her cup and saucer onto the side table. They seem too fragile suddenly in her hand. She is excited about what she thinks of as her investigation, but also nervous about Kamil’s reaction.

  “I saw Shukriye Hanoum, the woman who was engaged to Prince Ziya. She remembered Hannah.”

  “I see.” He looks surprised. “Where did you find her?”

  “She’s here in Istanbul. Her father is dying. She came to pay her last respects.”

  She tells him about the death of Shukriye’s children, her accusations against her mother-in-law, and the young kuma.

  “That’s barbaric. Did she tell you all this in front of the others? You said there were many visitors.”

  “No. I joined her and her sister in a private room afterwards.”

  “How did you manage that?” he asks, smiling and shaking his head at her audacity. “I thought you didn’t know them.”

  “Asma Sultan and her daughter were there and, when they moved to another room, they took me along.”

  “What did you learn about Hannah?”

  “Shukriye and her sister Leyla remembered Hannah from their visits to Asma Sultan’s household where she was employed. I presume they were visiting Perihan, who seems to be a close friend. That surprised me, since Shukriye was engaged to the man Perihan loved. Perhaps Perihan is a more generous soul than she appears.”

  Kamil smiles at the innocence of Sybil’s assessment. He knows better the unforgiving nature of royal intrigues that rage among the women as much as the men.

  Sybil relates the conversation as she remembers it: Shukriye’s belief that the secret police were responsible for Prince Ziya’s death; Arif Agha’s discovery that Hannah was meeting someone every week.

  Interrupting the easy lope of her story, Sybil pauses and reaches for her tea.

  “A carriage?” he prompts her impatiently.

  She sets the tea down, clattering the cup. “Yes. The eunuch told Asma Sultan that the driver had light-colored hair like a European, but tightly curled like an Arab’s. She thinks he might be a Kurd.”

  At this, Kamil is speechless. Ferhat Bey had claimed to know nothing of the driver. Perhaps the eunuch had told the superintendent a different story. Too many links in this chain, Kamil thinks irritably, and he doesn’t know if one is connected to the next.

  Sybil looks at him with a worried frown.

  “Did they know where the carriage was going?” he asks brusquely.

  “No.” Puzzled, she adds, “Asma Sultan said her eunuch told all this to the police.”

  “The superintendent wasn’t as forthcoming as I would have liked,” he admits. “What else did you learn?”

  “The women remembered Hannah wearing the silver pendant. They don’t remember Mary wearing it. I told them the pendant was made in the palace, with the sultan’s seal inside. They thought Hannah’s pendant must have been a gift, maybe from the person she visited every week, perhaps a lover. Or from someone in the harem.”

  “You told them all this?” Kamil’s back is suddenly tense.

  “It just came up in conversation,” Sybil equivocates uncomfortably. “Are you angry?”

  “I’m not angry, Sybil Hanoum. I’m just very concerned.” To calm himself, he reaches for his cup. The tea has developed oily streaks on the surface but he draws it down his throat. The room is stifling hot.

  “You are not to repeat these things to anyone, do you understand? Shukriye accusing the palace, the necklace, or what is in it.” He thinks of Elias Usta, dead among his birds. He had questioned the apprentice and learned that the usta died of a weak heart, but that none of his family had known the usta was ill. Kamil is certain Elias Usta’s death was meant as a warning not to seek the door to which the pendant is the key.

  Sybil is taken aback and a little offended by his stern tone.

  “Why not? After all, that’s how I got the information about the carriage. I tell the women something to get the conversation started in the right direction. It’s like putting a grain of sand into a clam. It irritates the clam so it coats it a bit at a time and eventually you have a perfectly lovely, usable pearl.” Sybil is proud of her skill in obtaining information and of her metaphor. She doesn’t understand why, instead of thanking her, he has become so angry.

  Kamil’s face has drained of color. He rises to his feet. “You have no idea what you’ve just said, have you?”

  Sybil stands also. They are face to face, only a few feet apart.

  “What’s the matter? I try to help you and now you’re angry with me.”

  Sybil has backed against the door. She begins to cry.

  “What have I done? What’s wrong? What harm can any of this do?”

  “What harm?” echoes Kamil hoarsely. “You have no idea, no idea. What else did you say to these women? Allah protect you, Sybil Hanoum. Did you think there were no spies in that room? Every word has been reported to the secret police, I can assure you of that.”

  He wipes the palms of his hands over his face.

  “Don’t you know that you’ve put yourself in great danger—and perhaps other parties to that conversation?”

  “I didn’t know.” The pearl at the base of Sybil’s neck rises and falls rapidly. Her cheeks are flushed and wet with tears.

  “I’m sorry. My tone was unforgivable,” he says in a low voice. “But, please, Sybil Hanoum, promise me you won’t go to see these women again, at least not without my approval.”

  She nods, wiping at her eyes.

  “And that you won’t go anywhere without an escort.”

  “I won’t be a prisoner in my own house.” She stares at him, her hands in tight fists at her side. “I couldn’t stand that.”

  “Of course not,” he adds soothingly. “You are free to go out, Sybil Hanoum, but I beg you not to go alone, for your own safety.”

  She nods, but turns her face away.

  Kamil stands by the door, his hand slick on the brass door handle, and watches her c
arefully for a moment.

  “I’m only concerned for you. I’m not angry. You’ve given me some important information and I thank you for it.”

  He walks swiftly through the garden. The fog has burned away, replaced by a veil of dust thrown up by animals and carts. At the gate, he spits out the grit that has already accumulated between his teeth.

  35

  The Dust of Your Street

  In the days that followed, the old woman no longer spoke with me except to announce that a meal was ready. I understood her completely and didn’t blame her. She had thought she was harboring a decent young woman in danger of her life, but found that her home had become a place of fornication. I smiled at her, but brought the food into my room to eat alone. I knew she was more comfortable that way. Because of her son, she could not object to our presence.

  Except for a narrow slot of light where the shutters met, the room was always dark, making it difficult to read the books and journals Hamza brought me. But I didn’t feel imprisoned by the dark. On the contrary, it was there that I became free. I swam in it as I swam in the pond at Chamyeri, when I discovered my body for the first time. My only regret was that Mama, Papa, and Ismail Dayi were worried about me. But Hamza had promised to tell Ismail Dayi I was safe.

  Was I safe? I wasn’t sure what that meant anymore. At what point has one sacrificed enough to be safe? Lines by Fuzuli came to me unbidden in the dark:

  I have no home, lost

  In the pleasure of wondering

  When at last I shall dwell

  Forever in the dust

  Of your street.

  THE OLD WOMAN knew something was wrong. Her face was tense and the tendons in her neck protruded. She did not answer when I asked her what was happening, but projected a silent fury. In response she shoved a bowl of rice-stuffed peppers in my direction. The languorous disconnection that had muffled my thoughts for the previous week was dissolved. I left the food on the plate and withdrew to my room, closing the door. I sat on the chair by the bed. It was completely dark. Without even a shadow, what was I, other than a vessel forged in Hamza’s hands? I couldn’t weep. There was too much danger.

  FINALLY, HAMZA’S VOICE at the door, the woman in her hurry fumbling the lock. Hamza came into the room, disheveled, his turban rimed with dirt. The woman spoke four words, hurling them at Hamza.

  “My son is missing.” She stood with her back against the door, red hands twisted into her apron. “He has stopped going to his place of work.” Her voice was reedy, wondering, already disbelieving. She was shaping her memories to hold the future. “He never missed a day in fifteen years. He has always been completely reliable, my son.” The room vibrated with her fear.

  Hamza sat heavily on the divan. “Shimshek is dead, teyze,” he said finally.

  She didn’t react at first.

  “What happened?” I asked him. He shrugged wearily.

  The old woman began to shake. No sound came from her mouth and no tears from her eyes. Instead, I wept for her. I went to embrace her, but at my touch, she began to struggle and a hoarse scream rose from her fragile, sagging throat.

  Hamza rose and grasped her thin shoulders. “Madame Devora, you must be quiet. Please. Please.”

  Madame Devora. It was the first time I had heard her name. Over his shoulder, her red-rimmed eyes sought me out by the window. “Damn you.”

  My eyes slid away from hers. I was distressed to have caused her this much grief. I too was sick with feeling. I was sick with a surfeit of memories that deprived me of clarity. Should I act or wait? What could I do? What could I ever do now? It slowly dawned on me that not only was I living outside society and outside of time, but there was no way back. My shadow in the world was the effect my actions had on my family. That was all that could still be observed.

  The old woman took Hamza’s arm and spat, “Take her out of here,” indicating me with her chin.

  “I’ll do what I need to do,” he snapped. “Let go of me.”

  I went into my room and brought out my feradje and veil and laid them in readiness on the divan. I had nothing else. Hamza stood beside the open window, peering through the curtains.

  “I spoke with your dayi,” he told me, never taking his eyes from the street. “He said you should go back to Chamyeri.”

  He turned and looked at me directly for the first time. Dark shadows chased across his face. His sleeves were torn.

  I reached for his arm. “You look tired, Hamza. You need to rest first.”

  I saw him hesitate.

  WE BOTH HEARD the voice at the door, a man’s voice with the same inflection as the old woman’s.

  “Madame, we would like to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

  A neighbor? I could feel Hamza tense, an animal deciding which way to spring.

  The voice at the door spoke quietly, but in my mind I already heard neighbors rustling behind the other doors on the landing. The old woman was backed into the farthest corner of the divan. I went to the door and put my ear to the wood. The man on the other side and I could hear each other breathing. I pulled at the latch, but Hamza sprang forward and caught me by the arm. As he pulled me away, there was a sharp crack; the wood splintered and the latch gave way. Two men pushed their way through. One was short and stocky, the other lean and quick, but it was the small one I distrusted instinctively, like one shies away from a snake even before recognizing what it is. Hiding behind me, Hamza held me by the waist and pulled me with him toward the window. Confused and angry, I struggled to loosen myself until, with a curse, he suddenly released me. I saw a flash of white at the window. The tall man leapt across the room and caught me as I stumbled forward.

  “There.” He pointed his chin at the window and the other man turned and ran down the stairs with an agility unexpected in one of his heft.

  “Are you all right?” The tall man led me to the divan. “Please sit. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe now.”

  I nodded, shivering.

  He crossed the room to the old woman and squatted before her.

  “Are you here about my son?” she asked in a barely audible voice.

  “Your son?”

  When she didn’t answer, he turned and looked at me curiously.

  “Madame Devora’s son has died,” I explained.

  His green eyes rested on me a moment, evaluating. “You are Ismail Hodja’s niece?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “We have been looking for you.” He turned back to the old woman crouched on the divan. She was rocking back and forth, staring uncomprehendingly at the palms of her hands, clenched stiff as claws in a parody of prayer.

  “Madame,” he said softly, “Madame, we know nothing of your son’s death. We are here for the girl. Can you tell us what happened? We’d like to help you.”

  She continued to rock, as if she had not heard.

  “She only just learned of it,” I explained.

  “It often takes time for such a message, although heard by the ear, to be understood by the head,” the man said to me quietly. “But never understood by the heart,” he added, shaking his head sadly.

  “Are you the police?” I asked anxiously.

  “We didn’t involve the police. I am Kamil, the magistrate of Beyoglu. The kadi of Galata asked me to find you. My associate”—he pointed with his chin toward the door—“works for the police, but as a surgeon. He’ll be discreet. No one but your family will know you were gone.”

  I didn’t respond. The experience of lying with Hamza that had so transformed me was to remain invisible, then, a footprint on wet sand to be erased by the next tide. While the other experience with Amin in the pleasure garden that had changed my body but left no other imprint was to be known to the world. I would need to formulate an explanation to my family that left out all that was important. I began to see that it was riskier to offer one’s heart than one’s body.

  NEIGHBORS WERE CROWDING in at the door. The magistrate beckoned to a buxom w
oman in a pink-striped entari who bustled over importantly.

  He identified his position to the somewhat disbelieving woman and told her to take charge of Madame Devora. He sent another neighbor for the rabbi. It occurred to me that Madame Devora had not asked Hamza how her son had died.

  The magistrate surveyed the room, pushed the crowd out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Madame Devora keened softly and rhythmically behind the broad striped back of her neighbor.

  “Are you all right?” he asked me. “Are you hurt? Is there anything we can do for you before we bring you home?”

  “Home?” I said the word as if I were looking it over for possible meanings. “I can’t go home.”

  “Please come over here.” He led me to the side of the divan farthest away from Madame Devora. I sat again and he squatted patiently before me. We were face to face. A handsome man, I thought, but hard.

  “Tell me what you can, please, Jaanan Hanoum. Or, if you like, we can discuss this later after I’ve taken you to your father’s house. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you are safe.”

  “No,” I insisted, “I can’t go there.”

  “Surely your father will have you back, Jaanan Hanoum. He was very concerned about your disappearance.”

  “You don’t understand,” I explained in a whispered rush. “I can’t go back because I’m in danger there.” I told him about my stepmother and Amin Efendi’s plot. I didn’t say where I had learned this.

  He nodded but said nothing. There was a commotion outside the door. The magistrate’s associate pushed his way through and shut the door decisively behind him. He was panting and the sides of his forehead were slick with sweat. It seemed improbable to me that this short, bulky man was a surgeon. I put on my feradje and yashmak, hiding my face, as was proper—although some might say I remembered this too late.